Why Sammy Lee Must Stay

“You don`t know what you`re doing.”

The chant, coming from Bolton`s more cerebrally challenged fans, as Sammy Lee substituted Andy O`Brien with Gerald Cid at Birmingham has been widely reported. The same ‘supporters` are now calling for Sammy Lee to be sacked. They are, as they were on Saturday, misguided.

There`s a good reason why struggling clubs shouldn`t dispense with the manager. It hardly ever works. Charlton sacked Iain Dowie too soon last season and were relegated. West Ham did the same with Alan Pardew and only survived because of the inspired form of Carlos Tevez. The history of football is littered with clubs who went down because the people who run them panicked.

Taking over the reins at Bolton was always going to be a difficult task. Sam Allardyce boasted that he`d left the club in good shape, but that couldn`t have been further than the truth. The Wanderers won a mere four games under Allardyce in 2007 and were conceding an average of two goals a game. That sequence of results included hammerings at Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Spurs and Manchester United. From being a team that no one liked playing against, Bolton had turned into soft touches.

The main criticism that can be levelled at Lee is that he hasn`t remedied the defensive short comings that have compromised Bolton`s results for nine months, but even here the influence of Allardyce remains. Gerald Cid was brought to the club by departed Sam and he did the groundwork for the signing of Jlloyd Samuel. Both have performed abysmally. The alternative to Cid is the cumbersome Lubomir Michalik. Care to guess who signed him? With a shortage of quality defenders to pick from, especially ones in Bolton`s price bracket and with the scouting team in decline due to the retirement of chief, Jack Chapman, Lee could only find journeyman Andy O`Brien to plug the gap. An uninspiring player, but he at least makes some attempt to marshal a back four that don`t appear to be on speaking terms.

The anger at Saturday`s defeat is understandable. The result against Everton was bearable, given that they`ll probably finish in the top six. The same applied to Portsmouth who are a tidy outfit on their own patch. Birmingham, who will struggle this season, were seen as a different proposition. Yet they deserved to win for displaying a battling attitude that was so lacking from Bolton.

Sacking Sammy Lee is a drastic and ill-thought out solution but he does need to improve. The continued inclusion of Kevin Nolan is a puzzle (as it was under Allardyce) and the lack of defensive organisation betrays his claim that the work is being done on the training ground. His media appearances don`t inspire confidence either, yet in person that impression is completely different. He`s knowledgeable, calm and fully aware of what the problems are. Given time, which Bolton have, despite the claims of the hysterical gang, Lee will come good. The fans have lost their heads. It can only be hoped that the board are keeping theirs.